King Arthur

I. Introduction

Arthur, legendary king of the Britons in ancient times, and the major figure in Arthurian legend. Arthur expelled foreigners from Britain, brought peace to the country, and established a kingdom based on justice, law, and morality. He held court at his castle at Camelot and instituted an order known as the knights of the Round Table. Eventually his realm crumbled, and his illegitimate son Mordred grievously wounded him in battle. Many versions of Arthurian legend say that Arthur will someday return, when he is again needed by Britain.

II. Legend

Arthur is the son of King Uther Pendragon and the lady Ygraine (who was married to Gorlois, the duke of Cornwall, when Arthur was conceived). After Arthur is born, the magician Merlin gives him to a man named Hector (also called Antor) to be raised with Hector's son, Kay. Arthur grows up as a commoner, but then he alone succeeds at a test devised to choose Uther's successor: Arthur draws a sword from a stone (or, in some versions of the story, from an anvil).

Because of his humble origins, Arthur must overcome strong opposition from the British nobles to his royal claim, but eventually he is crowned. To help him in his task of leading Britain, he receives a great sword, Excalibur, offered by a hand that rises mysteriously from a lake. To defeat Britain's enemies, Arthur undertakes a series of wars, conquests, and invasions. After Arthur completes these, Britain has a long period of peace and security. Arthur sets up the Round Table as a meeting place for his knights. The shape of the table ensures that all who sit around it are equal in status.

Arthur meets and marries the lady Guinevere, but she and Lancelot, one of Arthur's favored knights, eventually fall in love, and their relationship divides Camelot. The ruin of the kingdom is hastened by the quest for the Holy Grail, the sacred cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. However worthy an enterprise the quest may be, it takes Arthur's best knights away from court and leads many of them to their deaths. Once Arthur discovers Lancelot and Guinevere's love affair, his own system of justice requires that he condemn his wife to death. Lancelot rescues her, however, initiating a war between his forces and those of Arthur and the knight Gawain.

During the conflict with Lancelot, Arthur learns that the Romans plan to attack him. He fights and defeats them, but at the same time his illegitimate son (or, in some texts, his nephew), Mordred, tries to usurp the throne. Arthur then battles Mordred in a terrible conflict on Salisbury Plain that leaves many knights dead. Arthur kills Mordred, but before dying, the young man gravely wounds the king.

Facing death, Arthur orders one of his knights (Bedivere or Girflet, depending on the story) to throw Excalibur into a lake, so that the sword cannot fall into the wrong hands. Versions of the legend differ about Arthur's fate thereafter. Some say that he dies and is buried, others tell that a boat (usually containing a number of women, including Arthur's half sister Morgan le Fay) takes him away to the island of Avalon. Many works promise that Arthur will return when Britain again needs him to subdue the nation's enemies and to bring peace and security to the land.

III. Literary Treatment

The Welsh historian Nennius first mentioned Arthur by name in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons), but a full account of his life did not appear until about 300 years later, in the Historia Regum Britanniae (1136?; History of the Kings of Britain) by Welsh writer Geoffrey of Monmouth. Late-12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes composed romances about the legend, but he was primarily interested in Arthur's knights, not in the king himself. The Vulgate Cycle, a series of tales written in French from 1215 to 1235, devotes thousands of pages to the Arthurian story.

In English, one of the most important Arthurian achievements is Le morte d'Arthur (1469-1470; The Death of Arthur) by Sir Thomas Malory. This work draws together the full Arthurian story from a variety of sources. After enduring a period of lack of interest from the 1500s to the 1700s, Arthurian themes again became popular in the 1800s. English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson helped spur enthusiasm with his Idylls of the King (1859-1885), a series of poems on Arthurian subjects.

In the late 19th century and the 20th century, Arthur and his knights served as the subjects of hundreds of works. Some authors offered humorous takes, as in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) by American writer Mark Twain. In this book, an American travels back in time to King Arthur's period, allowing Twain to contrast the modern and medieval worlds. Most authors, however, took the legend seriously and either recast the basic story as historical fiction or adapted it to emphasize particular themes. For example, English writer T. H. White, in The Once and Future King (1938-1958), pays special attention to Merlin by approaching the story through the eyes of a young Arthur being educated by Merlin. American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, in The Mists of Avalon (1982), explores the Arthurian world from the point of view of the female characters, giving them more voice than they had in most previous works, and paying attention to the relationships the women have with one another.

Numerous other writers have updated Arthur's story to the present or adapted it as science fiction, fantasy, or even murder mystery. Many modern authors make the characters more complex and more human than earlier writers did, even emphasizing Arthur's flaws. Yet the majority of those authors have retained the notion of a King Arthur who, despite his imperfections, remains a noble and larger-than-life figure.

Contributed By: Norris J. Lacy, A.B., M.A., Ph.D. Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of French, The Pennsylvania State University. Editor of The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Honorary President, International Arthurian Society.

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